Autumn Colors Resurrection

We’ve had some really nice autumn afternoons the past couple of weeks, and we have not taken them for granted. The garden is put to bed. We’ve laid in the cool grass, and taken long walks to the grocery store. We’ve carried brightly colored leaves up and down the sidewalk, and waved them at every car that passed by – reminding them that things are changing.

He doesn’t miss any of it. Crunchy leaves underfoot are all inspected, and the really dry ones are methodically crushed to pieces. Colorful leaves overhead are studied and wondered at, especially when the wind blows.

And we talk about shapes and colors. We count. We sample texture with our cheeks. We pile and we toss and we talk.

One afternoon last week the wind came through, demanding some attention, which The Meatball was all too pleased to pay. The golden trees that line the back yard shivered at the hint of winter’s approach, and the baby, from where his butt had landed in the yard, looked up, pointed, and cooed at the dancing branches as they shed another layer all around him.

“The trees are letting go of more leaves, huh, Baby?”

He looked at me, right index finger still extended, as though to not lose the trees’ attention.

“It’s okay,” I explained. “That’s how God designed the trees.”

He stared up at them again, and I let my rake fall to the dirt to go and sit with him. We watched the trees together and talked about seasons. 

We talked about how every fall, the trees go to sleep. Their leaves die, and fall to the ground, and the earth gets cold. The flowers and bushes do it too. Animals get fat, and some go to sleep with the trees.

And then there’s winter, when everything rests. The trees become skeletons, and things get quiet – especially when it snows.

Because everything dies. Everything needs rest, so winter is still. And kind of gray. And creation silently mourns the lilacs and the strawberries.

There are pretty days, when the sun puts on a good face and the white ground glitters and the sky remembers its hue, but even on those days the air is tense and biting. The ground is hard and distant. We smile, but we wait.

Because everything dies. Everything needs rest, but every spring the trees bud and the flowers poke through the dirt. Everything dies, but God designed spring to come after winter to remind us that everything always comes to life again. The trees we miss will bud again, our favorite flowers will bloom again, and the people that we love who are sleeping for a season will be with us again.

The changes remind us.

God did not design death, but He makes it beautiful – like a warm autumn day – because He designed spring.